Pablo Enrique Paredes Castro

Instructor, RadiologyInstructor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Bio

Pablo Paredes earned his PhD in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 2015. He is part of the faculty, as an Instructor, in the Radiology, and the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Departments at Stanford University. Prior to joining the School of Medicine, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher in Computer Science at Stanford University for two years. During his PhD career, he held internships on behavior change and affective computing in Microsoft Research and Google. Before 2010 he was a senior strategic manager with Intel in Sao Paulo, Brazil, a lead product manager with Telefonica in Quito, Ecuador and an Entrepreneur in his natal Cuenca, Ecuador. In these roles, he has had the opportunity to closely evaluate designers, engineers, business people and researchers in telecommunications, product development, and ubiquitous computing. He has advised several PhD, masters and undergrad students.

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Current Research and Scholarly Interests

In my lab we have four key areas of study: mindful commute, subtle interventions, sensorless sensing, and precise mental states. Our projects aim to design not only useful and efficient wellbeing interventions, but also passive behavioral and affective sensors.

SENSORLESS SENSINGEvery couple of days, humanity generates more data than all the data that was generated until 2013. Sensorless sensing is a provocative term and approach focused on repurposing many existing behavioral data streams to passively measure and study affect, stress, behavior, wellbeing and mental health biomarkers.

Projects:Auto-nomic: Turning the car into an affective sensor.PeriStress: Peripherals and furniture as stress sensors.

SUBTLE INTERVENTIONSWe use human-centered design to develop affordable and ecologically valid interventions aimed at dramatically increasing adoption and engagement of wellbeing behaviors. We leverage cyber and physical personal spaces to deliver micro or slow interventions that do not distract or interrupt the user.

MINDFUL COMMUTEEvery day, 50 Million Americans spend close to one hour per day commuting by car. We teamed up with Prof. James Landay's HCI lab to design interventions that help manual and autonomous car commuters feel energized to be productive in the morning, and wind down to socialize and sleep better in the evening.

PRECISE MENTAL STATESPsychiatry is undergoing a major revolution with the advent of personal technology. We are part of a multi-disciplinary team led by Prof. Zhenan Bao, creating the Mentaid, a skin-like patch aimed at sensing cortisol from sweat and other biomarkers to measure and study longitudinally precise mental states.

Abstract

The daily commute could be a right moment to teach drivers to use movement or breath towards improving their mental health. Long commutes, the relevance of transitioning from home to work, and vice versa and the privacy of commuting by car make the commute an ideal scenario and time to perform mindful exercises safely. Whereas driving safety is paramount, mindful exercises might help commuters decrease their daily stress while staying alert. Increasing vehicle automation may present new opportunities but also new challenges.This study aimed to explore the design space for movement-based mindful interventions for commuters. We used qualitative analysis of simulated driving experiences in combination with simple movements to obtain key design insights.We performed a semistructured viability assessment in 2 parts. First, a think-aloud technique was used to obtain information about a driving task. Drivers (N=12) were given simple instructions to complete movements (configural or breath-based) while engaged in either simple (highway) or complex (city) simulated urban driving tasks using autonomous and manual driving modes. Then, we performed a matching exercise where participants could experience vibrotactile patterns from the back of the car seat and map them to the prior movements.We report a summary of individual perceptions concerning different movements and vibrotactile patterns. Beside describing situations within a drive when it may be more likely to perform movement-based interventions, we also describe movements that may interfere with driving and those that may complement it well. Furthermore, we identify movements that could be conducive to a more relaxing commute and describe vibrotactile patterns that could guide such movements and exercises. We discuss implications for design such as the influence of driving modality on the adoption of movement, need for personal customization, the influence that social perception has on participants, and the potential role of prior awareness of mindful techniques in the adoption of new movement-based interventions.This exploratory study provides insights into which types of movements could be better suited to design mindful interventions to reduce stress for commuters, when to encourage such movements, and how best to guide them using noninvasive haptic stimuli embedded in the car seat.

Abstract

This demo presents an instance of Inquire, a tool designed to support qualitative researchers in the early stages of research. The tool enables the search over millions of users' records to extract early insights to aid in the formulation of research strategies. The tool presents the work described in the Inquire paper by Paredes, et. al. [12] in this demo we show how queries become a part of the inductive process, enabling researchers to try multiple ideas while gaining intuition and discovering less-obvious insights. We leverage LiveJournal (LJ) as a rich source of public posts, and Google News (GN) embeddings which link formal language (e.g. "reminiscence triggers") with colloquial expressions (e.g. "music brings back memories"). Using our tool, we elicit the interplay between tool and user to enhance qualitative and social research opportunities.

Abstract

This paper presents a list of principles that can be used to conceptualize games for health behavior change. These principles are derived from lessons learned after teaching two design-centered courses on Gaming and Narrative Technologies for Health Behavior Change. Course sessions were designed to create many rapid prototypes on specific topics coupling behavior change theory with iterative human-centered and game design techniques. The design task had two broad goals: 1) designing efficacious technologies, with an emphasis on short-term behavior change and 2) using narratives and game dynamics as vehicles for increased engagement and long-term sustained change. Example prototypes resulting from this design approach are presented.

Abstract

This paper describes our vision on what should be the research around sensing and adaptive interventions to make affective computing and stress management technology pervasive and unobtrusive. With the use of common computer peripherals and mobile computing devices as affect sensors, personalized and adaptive intervention technologies can be developed. Furthermore, physiological sensing can be performed without the introduction of extraneous factors such as wearable devices or focused software. Different methods for sensing and complementary adaptable interventions and interactions are described and proposed. We show initial lab evidence of the use of a computer mouse in the detection of stress.

Abstract

This paper describes design explorations for stress mitigation on mobile devices based on three types of interventions: haptic feedback, games and social networks. The paper offers a qualitative assessment of the usability of these three types of interventions together with an initial analysis of their potential efficacy. Social networking and games show great potential for stress relief. Lastly, the paper discusses key findings and considerations for long-term studies of stress mitigation in HCI, as well as a list of aspects to be considered when designing calming interventions.